This essay aims to emphasize and clarify the positions that exist within the current globalization debate. The positions are the neo-liberal, the opponents, the pragmatists and the skeptics. The text presents and explains their ideological, moral and political positions and beliefs about the world, the nation state, the society and the individual; in light of Steven Lukes? and Antonio Gramsci's theories regarding the interaction and the relationship between power and hegemony. The methodological starting point is the ideology-critical analysis; in which their arguments in the current globalization debate is highlighted and categorized.

The current research examined whether motives, traditional mass media consumption and individual differences (social activity and political interest) predicted the use of social media among a group of university students in China. In coherence with Uses and Gratifications assumptions the study found that the factors differentially predicted the extent of media use. Information seeking, social interaction and affinity were the main reasons for using social media. There was a negative correlation between television viewing and use of social media, in addition to a negative correlation between information seeking and use of the media. Results further suggest that social media are used to enhance social capital, since student?s being socially active offline, tend to use the media to a greater extent than those less active..

This study has the purpose of looking at the current and future position of record labels from a context involving the technological developments, while the opportunities for the artists are changing. As the actors inside them music industry find themselves in an ever changing climate where traditional supply chains are threatened by new technology, the record labels need to change the way they work in order to maintain their existence in the music industry. The study has been conducted by interviewing a number of people involved in the music industry, by using a qualitative method approach. The conclusion of the study shows that the traditional way of doing business by treating music as a product that makes revenue is gone. Instead the labels have to take on new roles formerly run by third parties in order to survive and be profitable, especially since artists can now in control of activities that used to be controlled by the record label..

This study has the purpose of looking at the current and future position of record labels from a context involving the technological developments, while the opportunities for the artists are changing. As the actors inside them music industry find themselves in an ever changing climate where traditional supply chains are threatened by new technology, the record labels need to change the way they work in order to maintain their existence in the music industry. The study has been conducted by interviewing a number of people involved in the music industry, by using a qualitative method approach. The conclusion of the study shows that the traditional way of doing business by treating music as a product that makes revenue is gone. Instead the labels have to take on new roles formerly run by third parties in order to survive and be profitable, especially since artists can now in control of activities that used to be controlled by the record label..

The purpose of this study has been to compare the present with the future syllabus of mathematics. With a text analytical approach has questions about how the structure is different, how the look at knowledge has changed and which learning theory that characterizes the two syllabus been answered. As a theoretical framework I adopt three different learning theories, behaviourism, cognitivism and the socio-cultural perspective. The pervious research I have looked at is the concept of knowledge an the underlying theories to previous curriculum. During the increase results in the greatest difference seen in the structure.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the customer profitability in a wholesale company. A case study of Eugen Wiberger AB has been conducted. Firstly the authors have examined the current perception of the company regarding their customer profitability and the results of their calculation of the customer profitability. Secondly an Activity-Based Costing analysis has been performed and has been compared to the perception in the case company. The conclusions are that the smaller customers are the least profitable, and in some cases unprofitable, whereas the larger customers are profitable.

The study aims to reduce energy consumption in apartment buildings where individual metering and charging of heat is applied. The aim is to develop planning and design for individual metering and charging in apartment buildings.The study is based on literature review, interviews and case study that include analysis of existing documents. Interviews were carried out with the property developer and the involved consultants who planned the apartment building Yasuragi. To investigate the differences the condominium association has noted in heat consumption between flats, the debit values of the heat were used to discern which houses that were furthest from the average consumption. On these flats there were temperature measurements and thermal photo shoots made for discriminating behavior and possible construction techniques which could be the explanation for the heat spread.Boverket shows that the consumption of heat can be reduced by 10-20% after insertion of individual metering and charging in an apartment block.

As the usage of loyalty programs increases, this study takes a new approach to examine how these programs influence consumers? attitudes toward brands. This paper is influenced by the recent findings that question the capability to create a clear picture of the effects of loyalty programs by conducting quantitative research. This is based of the differentiation between attitudes and actions, leading to the fact that quantitative research have only captured the actions of members of loyalty programs. In contrast to that, this paper uses qualitative interviews to create a more in-depth point of view.The paper immerses the reader in the theoretical viewings of what loyalty is and how it emerges from satisfaction.

This paper was made together withTechPay AB, by their request.The dissertation has been divided into two separate parts; one of which is fully theoretical, with the focus on the security requirements of a digital cash register, and how to meet these requirements.The second part covers the implementation of anAndroid-oriented Java-library,created with help from the security requirements found in the first part. The purpose of this library is to make it easier to develop a cash register that uses payment terminals from TechPay.This paper also covers different communication protocols, encryption techniques and recommendations from authorities, banks and Android. This paper also contains a small review of how users are validated in applications on the current market that handles money transactions..

This study has the purpose of looking at the current and future position of record labels from a context involving the technological developments, while the opportunities for the artists are changing. As the actors inside them music industry find themselves in an ever changing climate where traditional supply chains are threatened by new technology, the record labels need to change the way they work in order to maintain their existence in the music industry. The study has been conducted by interviewing a number of people involved in the music industry, by using a qualitative method approach. The conclusion of the study shows that the traditional way of doing business by treating music as a product that makes revenue is gone. Instead the labels have to take on new roles formerly run by third parties in order to survive and be profitable, especially since artists can now in control of activities that used to be controlled by the record label..

The purpose of this essay was to examine how childless homosexuals (men and women) were looking at family formation and parenthood. The essential questions were how the homosexuals felt about their own parenthood in the future and about different family constellations. We also wanted to examine how they experienced reactions from the society and what they thought about the current Swedish laws in force of adoption and insemination.We have chosen to work with a qualitative method and interviewed nine childless homosexual men and women in the age between 21 - 39 years to get some answers about the questions above.The main result from the interviews was that the homosexuals had the same thoughts like any other future parent but with a more complicated engagement. Even though they some times felt a resistance in the society against homosexual parenthood it was not a thing that would stop them from getting children..

This study has the purpose of looking at the current and future position of record labels from a context involving the technological developments, while the opportunities for the artists are changing. As the actors inside them music industry find themselves in an ever changing climate where traditional supply chains are threatened by new technology, the record labels need to change the way they work in order to maintain their existence in the music industry. The study has been conducted by interviewing a number of people involved in the music industry, by using a qualitative method approach. The conclusion of the study shows that the traditional way of doing business by treating music as a product that makes revenue is gone. Instead the labels have to take on new roles formerly run by third parties in order to survive and be profitable, especially since artists can now in control of activities that used to be controlled by the record label..

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.

The actual project presents the development of a testing rig for a steam engine. A short overviewabout the development of steam engines is presented, until arriving to the development of thepresent engine, which will require to be tested in different ways.The testing rig studied on this project (based on a Lanchester engine) will be used to testdifferent materials and layouts for the group Piston-Cylinder.The engine is a high performance steam power engine, which is going to have a highpower/dimensions ratio, what will lead to require high performance components and materials.An introduction to the testing rig is presented, and the entire design project is done in order toreplace the disappeared documentation of the current testing rig, built on the 1970?s. Also somemodifications done in the original testing rig are presented, as well as some detected problemsand their possible solutions..

In the present case, the conception of policy hitchhiking gets evaluated in terms of its implications for democracy. This task is executed through the accomplishment of a case study of the use of social- and environmental clauses in the Swedish competitive tendering.A useful definition of policy hitchhiking, including different types of actors, is created.Through the defining of democracy and policy hitchhiking, the author comes to the conclusion that policy hitchhiking in some respects does meet democracy values.The thesis? result can in some sense be regarded as a contribution to the pursuit of knowledge of how power is distributed in the society and how the current distribution can be explained and understood..